Back in Africa

After 24 straight hours of traveling, we have arrived in Cape Town. This summer my group includes 4 other college students who have an interest in one of our main South African partners- the Prince family and their ministry, Ubuntu Sports. We're staying in a cottage a couple of miles away from the township we'll be working in. It also just happens to be a 5 minute walk away from the beach and a great coffee shop I came to often last summer. Tonight we realized this place stays open late and has free wifi. As college students, a late night coffee shop is about as crucial as anything else we'll find here so we were all excited. We also beat our goal of staying up past 10 pm to beat jetlag. I can already tell the next six weeks will be great. We'll add everyone's initial thoughts and some pictures to the blog by the end of the week. -Alison, L4L co-founder

the humblest man i have ever met.

Yesterday I met with Ben, Alison, and Doug for coffee at a small but popular coffee shop known as Global Village. We drank fancy drinks and sat in a wonderful building that was kept at a particularly comfortable 72 degrees. We talked about everything from our adventures overseas to what our future plans are and just what God might have in store for us. This was a wonderful time and yet it reminded me so much of where we had been and the people that we met and new ways that I can be supporting them, with prayer and any other means I have been blessed.

When googling humility it says the following: adjective. "having or showing a modest or low estimate of one's own importance." Google is wrong. After meeting the man above and seeing what true humility is I would have to define it as: "knowing the importance of following a savior's example and taking the place below others out of love."

Here's the story. While staying in Kampala, Uganda Ben and I were graciously given the opportunity to stay under the roof of a children's home. We were welcomed with open arms and big smiles by the 'uncles' who helped care for the family style environment that the boys were adopted into. During our stay I saw the most amazing acts of service. The room we were staying in was extremely small and we had been putting our bags under the bed for about a week when he persistently offered to put them on his bed because he felt that they were going to get ruined. A few weeks later we noticed that he wasn't sleeping in the room and thinking nothing of it thought he was staying somewhere else in the home. He was. He had be sleeping on a disintegrated mattress on the floor! And all for our silly bags. At this point I realized what it meant to be a servant, sometimes its not only putting yourself below others but also the things they "care" about. This was also an amazing lesson on materialism. Needless to say we never let our bags take another human's place. This is only one of the many ways that I was blessed by someone caring for me in ways that I couldn't even imagine.

This is Alex and he is the most humble person I have ever met.
Thanks for reading!
_av

ps. if you want to give (letters, or support) to alex just email me at av@loveforthesakeoflove.com.

Pictures from Port Edward

The Final Stretch

We've spent the past couple of weeks staying with the Stotler's- a family of missionaries in Port Edward, which is a small town on the east coast of South Africa.  When I came to South Africa two years ago I became great friends with a girl named Emily.  She is now working with a ministry called YWAM (Youth With A Mission) in Durban, South Africa and it is her parents and two younger siblings that we're now with.
Each day we go out into the town they serve in to their ministry site which is composed of a nursery and community center building.  We've been painting murals inside of the preschool and just finished painting the roof of the new community center.  Most of my mission trip experience has had a construction work focus, so its been a lot of fun getting back to this type of work.  There is also a water pump on the site, which is one of the main social spots of the community.  Its crazy to watch even young kids walking to the pump by themselves to bring back water for their family every day or even multiple times a day.  Though its simply part of their lives, it often prevents children from going to school here and women from working outside of the home.  A majority of their time is instead spent just surviving.  It has also been interesting interacting with these people as they walk by and seeing their expressions trying to figure out what the crazy white people are doing trying to paint a roof.
Our free time not spent painting has been great as well.  Being here has allowed us to truly see how another missionary family lives.  Each portion of our trip has given us a new perspective on what the life of a missionary is like and we're really starting to understand what this actually looks like.  One thing we've all realized is that so much of it is not preaching the Gospel, but living it out.  Its all about being an example to the people they interact with each day and building long term relationships.  Its easy to have an American mentality and think that I can come in and start making changes to improve everyone's life, but its so much deeper than that.  It takes time.  Lots and lots of time.
Christine leaves on Friday to head back home and Doug and I leave next Monday so we're all trying to make the most of our last few days here.  We'll try to post some new pictures on the blog soon.
-Alison